So I hear soren has been blessed. Hopefully that included giving him a lightning hammer or a rune covered sword of somekind. This week here in Brasilll we had an interesting experience. We planned an awesome early morning baptism for this kid and another family and we get there and the kid is there with his mom and super excited, but the family is no where to be seen. So I call them and the 10 year old picks up the phone and is like "my parents are asleep." Despite our best efforts they ended up missing the baptism, which seemed to be just one more thing in a long list of crazy crap that all happened at once, but oh well. It was just one of those weeks where you wake up every day feeling a little more tired than when you went to sleep and you try as hard as you can but poop is just hitting the fan everywhere you look. Then one day yet another lesson fell through, and just when I was thinking that I was too tired to keep going up endless stairs seemingly for no reason, the lady yelled at me, "HEY WHITEY, WHAT IS YOUR NAME?" from really far away. So I was like "EL-DER CHRIS-TEN-SEN" hoping she would understand my name and she was like "COME HERE, I WANT TO TALK TO YOU GUYS." Turns out she had been to church a few months ago with one of her friends who is a member in another city and since that day had been looking for us. She is a single mom that lives in a wood shack next to what I have lovingly named "the poop river" (I named it that because it is raw sewage in river form) and works like crazy to raise her 2 kids. It blows my mind when I meet people who work 12 hours a day to earn a whopping $30 and still find things to be thankful for. But she is someone who is sincerely looking for the truth about why our church is different, because in her words, "I haven't ever felt as happy as I did the day I went to your church to visit... and I've been to a lot of churches. It felt like I came home where my parents will take care of me and I did't need to worry anymore." So that was a good day.

Besides that I just had a few funny stories like every week. I got to work with this dude building his house and we were doing the bathroom part and it was hilarious to see how they work with PVC. Instead of buying the nice PVC pipe that is already gauged to be linked end to end, they just buy all the same gauge. So then you run into the problem of the pipe never being able to connect, and how they get over this problem is hilarious to me. They take the PVC glue or a bottle of alcohol and they cover the end of the pipe with it and then they light it on fire and wait till it is sizzling and bubbling, then blow out the fire and they ram the other tube into it untill the hot tube that is now kind of stretchy stretches over and then when it cools you have this crappy fitting and slightly leaky coupling of two tubes. then they call it good. I thought it was hilarious. Also it explains the poop smell that I am always smelling, but that is how it is done in the ghetto. It gets really funny when they have already elbowed the pipe a few times and they try to do it again, and in the confusion all of the couplings come apart. Crazy folkkkkkkkk

Then I also realized that my companion never goes to the bathroom without taking a shower after. So I asked him why he ALWAYS has to take a shower and he was like "uhhh... I just am washing my hands in the shower because I like it." But then after some time he told me that he is mildly OCD and has to wash his butt after or he goes crazy, so I am thinking of a funny prank to pull on him using this knowledge to my benefit. Any Ideas? I recently just will randomly ask him if he smells something gross, kind of like poop, and when he says no I insist that it smells bad and he goes to take a shower. But I think there is more to be had here.

Also he thinks blue darts (farting on a lighter to make a big flame) are HILARIOUS and had never even heard of that before. Basically I am just teaching him how to have a crazy fun time and still obey the mission rules and he loves it. I teach him something different every few days as the ideas come back to me.

Also another random thing that is happening is lots of random concerts at Morumbi Stadium which we can see from our house because it is kind of down hill and we can hear pretty good. I know that Iron Maiden was there the other night because I recognized one of their songs. But also there has been since I've been here in the area that I can remember, Shakira, Black eyed peas, AC/DC, and a few other people. It is so weird to be going to sleep at night and to know that the music you are hearing through the window is the real band. Luckily for me it is not anyone that I would ever want to go watch. I'll start caring a bit more when it is a good band that I always listened to that is making want to go watch the concert. I don't think that anyone I listened to is going to be playing there anytime soon...

Also I live in brasil. I think that is hilarious sometimes.

But other than that it was just a normal week. Yet another week of loosely connected thoughts that have run through my mind in the last few days. Everybody make sure to be happy and keep it classy. I love you all and I will talk to you laterrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr